THE EXECUTION.

What shall he be, ere night?--Perchance a thing O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing.

--_Byron_.

It was broad daylight when the viscount was again awakened, and this time by the solemn tolling of the prison bell. He sprang out of bed and looked out of the window and recoiled in horror. There in the angle of the prison yard stood the gallows, grimly painted black.

That was what the carpenters had been at work on all night.

And the tolling of the prison bell warned him that the last hour of the condemned man had come; that he was even now leaving his cell for the gallows. Lord Vincent staggered back and fell upon his bed.

In the fate of Frisbie he seemed to feel a forewarning of the certain retribution that was lying in wait for himself.

There came a sound of footsteps along the passage. They paused before his cell. Someone unlocked the door. And, to the viscount's astonishment, the procession that was on its way to the gallows entered his presence. There was Frisbie, still unbound, but guarded by a half a dozen policemen and turnkeys, and attended by the undersheriff of the county, and the warden and the chaplain of the prison.

Lord Vincent stared in astonishment, wondering what brought them there; but he found no words in which to put the question.

The chaplain constituted himself the spokesman of the party.

"My lord, this unhappy man wishes to see you before he dies; and the sheriff has kindly accorded him the privilege," said Mr. Godfree.

Lord Vincent looked from the chaplain to the prisoner in perplexity and terror. What could the condemned man, in the last hour of his life, want with him?

Frisbie spoke:

"My lord, I am a dying man; but I could not meet death with guilty secrets on my soul. My lord, I have told everything, the whole truth about the death of poor Ailsie, and the plot against my lady. I could not help it, my lord. I could not leave the world with such wrong unrighted behind me. I could not so face my Creator. I have come to tell you this, my lord, and ask you to forgive me if, in doing this, I have been compelled to do you harm," said the man, speaking humbly, deprecatingly, almost affectionately.

"God forgive you, Frisbie, but you have ruined me!" was the somewhat strange reply of the viscount, as he turned away; for it seemed to those who heard him that he was asking the Lord to forgive the sinner, not for his sins, but for his confession of them.

The procession of death left the cell; the door was locked, and the viscount was alone again--alone, and in utter, irremediable despair.

He sat upon the side of the bed, his hands clasped and his chin dropped upon his breast until the bell of the prison chapel suddenly ceased to toll. Then he looked up. It was all over. The judicial tragedy had been enacted. And he arose and went to the grated window and looked out.

No, oh, Heaven, it was not all over! That group around the foot of the gallows; that cart and empty coffin; that shrouded and bound figure, convulsed and swaying in the air--blasted his sight. With a loud cry he dashed his hand up to his eyes to shut out the horrible vision, and fell heavily upon the floor. He lay there as one dead until the turnkey brought his breakfast. Then he got up and threw himself upon the bed. He eagerly drank the coffee that was brought to him, for his throat was parched and burning; but he could not swallow a mouthful of solid food.

"Bring me the afternoon paper as soon as it is out," he said to the turnkey, at the same time handing him a half-crown. The man bowed in silence and took his breakfast tray from the table and withdrew.

For some reason or other, perhaps from the fear of coming in contact with the preparations for the execution, Mrs. MacDonald did not present herself at the prison until nearly noon, so that the prison clock was actually on the stroke of twelve when old Cuthbert was admitted to his master's cell. On entering and beholding his master, the old man started and exclaimed in affright:

"Gude guide us, me laird, what has come over ye?"

"Nothing, Cuthbert, but want of rest. What is that you have in your hand?"

"The evening paper, me laird, that ane o' the lads gi'e me to bring your lairdship."

"Have you looked at it?" demanded the viscount anxiously, for he could not bear the idea of his old servant's reading the confession of Frisbie, that was probably in that very paper. "Have you looked at it, I ask you?" he repeated fiercely.

"Nay, no, me laird. I hanna e'en unfaulded it," said the old man simply, handing the paper.

The viscount seized it, threw himself on the chair, and opened it; but instead of reading the paper he looked up at old Cuthbert, who was standing there watching his master, with the deepest concern expressed in his venerable countenance.

"There, get about something; do anything! only don't stand there and stare at me, as if you had gone daft!" angrily exclaimed Lord Vincent.

The old man turned meekly, and began to put things straight in the cell. The viscount searched and found what he had feared to see. Ah!

well might he dread the eye of old Cuthbert on him while he read those columns.

Yes, there it was; the account of the last hours of Alick Frisbie by the pen of the chaplain! the night in the cell, the scene of the execution, and, last of all, the confession of the culprit with all its shameful revelations. The viscount, with a feverish desire to see how deeply he himself was implicated, and to know the worst at once, read it all. How far he was implicated indeed! He was steeped to the very lips in infamy.

Why, the crime for which Frisbie had suffered death, the murder of that poor girl, committed in a paroxysm of passion, and repented in bitterness, and confessed in humility, seemed only a light offense beside the deep turpitude, the black treachery, of that long premeditated, carefully arranged plot against Lady Vincent, in which the viscount was the principal and the valet only the accomplice.

The plot was revealed in all its base, loathsome, revolting details.

The reader knows what these details were, for he has both seen them and heard of them. But can he imagine what it was to the viscount to have them discovered, published, and circulated?

When Lord Vincent had read this confession through he knew that all was forever over with him; he knew that at that very hour hundreds of people were reading that confession, shuddering at his guilt, scorning his baseness, and anticipating his conviction; he knew as well as if he had just heard the sentence of the court what that sentence would be. Penal servitude for life!

Deep groans burst from his bosom.

"Me laird, me laird, you are surely ill," said the old man anxiously, coming forward.

"Yes, Cuthbert, I am ill; in pain."

"Will I call a doctor?"

"No, Cuthbert; a doctor is not necessary; but attend to me a moment.

They let you bring me anything you like unquestioned, do they not?"

"Aye, surely, me laird; for you are no under condemnation yet; but only waiting for your honorable acquittal."

"Cuthbert, I think you have a brother who is a chemist in town, have you not?"

"Ou, aye, me laird. Joost Randy, honest man."

The viscount sat down and wrote a line on a scrap of paper and gave it to the old man.

"Now, Cuthbert, take this to your brother. Be sure that you let no one see that bit of paper, and when you get the medicine that I have written for, put it in your bosom and don't take it out until you come back to me and we are alone. Now, Cuthbert, I hope you will be more canny over this affair than you were over the affair of the note I sent to Frisbie, which you permitted to fall into the hands of Philistines."

"Ah, puir Frisbie, puir lad! Gude hae mercy on him! I'll be carfu', me laird; though it was no me, but puir Frisbie himsel', that let the bit note drap. But I'll be carefu', me laird, though 'deed I dinna see the use o' concealment, sin' naebody ever interferes wi'

onything I am bringing your lairdship."

"But they might interfere with this because it is medicine; for they might think that no one but the prison doctor has a right to give medicine here."

"Ou, aye--I comprehend, me laird, that sic might be the case where the medicament is dangerous. But will this be dangerous?"

"Why, no; it is nothing but simple laudanum. You know how good laudanum is to allay pain; and that there is no danger at all in it."

"No, me laird, gin ane doesna tak' an ower muckle dose."

"Certainly, if one does not take an overdose; but I have knowledge enough not to do that, Cuthbert."

"Surely, me laird. I'll gae noo and get it," replied the old man, taking up his hat, and knocking at the door to be released. The turnkey opened promptly, and Cuthbert departed on his errand.